Time of the Wolf (11 page)

The earl turned on his heel and strode away. Hereward looked around at the faces of the scarred, bearded men surrounding him, every eye burning like an ember. They were brothers, and he had wounded one of their own. For every moment he spent in their midst, death would never be far away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
N THE BRIGHT OF THE NEW DAY
,
THE CIRCLE OF HUSCARLS
shook their fists toward the blue sky and roared their approval. Their wooden shields rattled against their hauberks to the rhythm of their cheers. As they pawed the snow of the hall's enclosure with their leather shoes, they released blasts of clouding breath with every contemptuous guffaw.

On hands and knees at the center of the ring, Hereward kept his head down so that his blond hair fell across his swollen cheek. His mind flashed back to the first time his father had struck him after the death of his mother, and his rage burned. When he was ready, he stood up and let the icy wind cool him. Wiping the back of his hand across his bleeding nose, he shook the last of the din from his skull and turned to face his new brothers of the shield. Looking around the dense circle of weather-beaten faces, he saw contempt, but also a hint of fear. That was all he needed.

“A cowardly blow,” he said.

“
You
speak of honor?” Kraki circled the Mercian, bear-like in his thick furs, leather, and chain mail, his silvery helmet casting pools of shadow round his eyes. “You fight like a cornered animal.” The commander of Tostig's huscarls was a veteran of battles across the frozen river valleys of the Varangians and of the Byzantine campaigns in the hot lands to the south, Hereward had learned. That the Viking still lived was proof enough of his prowess, but his heavily scarred skin had become a map of his successes. Brutal and cold, loyal and fair, he seemed a stew of contradictions.

“I fight to win.” Hereward spat a mouthful of blood onto the snow. From the moment he had joined the huscarls that morning, they had made it plain that he was to be punished for his savage attack on Thangbrand. As he stepped up to them with his new shield and axe, he had been tripped, then kicked and punched repeatedly. It would do little good to express the remorse he felt for the extent of the Viking's wounds, he knew. Reparation had to be made, a balance struck, and the admission that he could not control his inner devil would carry little weight.

Kraki pressed his face close. “This is Northumbria, and we are huscarls. We do not send a man before the Witan to account for his crimes. We have our own rules. Here we follow the old ways, of blood and fire. Honor is all.” He glanced around the circle. “A man of honor has firm principles. A man of honor fights for his friends in time of need. For his people, his land.” The huscarl leader looked the warrior up and down with unconcealed contempt. “You have no honor. You are nothing.”

Hereward bit his tongue.

Jeers ran through the ranks. From the edge of the hall ground, a large brown bear rose up on to its hind legs and bellowed in response to the sound it heard. Tostig had had the beast brought over from the Northlands, for entertainment and as a symbol of his own untamed power. Though it was shackled in its own enclosure, its roar chilled all who heard it, the warrior saw.

Kraki glanced toward the bear and nodded. “There, the sound of your kin calling to you. But brutish strength and a beast's ferocity and cunning will not keep you alive for long. That rage that burns so hot in you will be your end.”

Hereward feared that the commander's words were true. “I will prove my value, with my sword and my axe.”

The Viking snorted. “Not this day. There is too much bad feeling toward you. Who here would want a wild animal at his side, as likely to attack him as the enemy? If you would be trusted, we must see you have been tamed.” He turned his back on the warrior and walked away. “You will toil with the slaves until I summon you, fetching water and cutting wood for the hearth. Even that work is too good for you.”

Hereward's cheeks burned, but he would endure. He had suffered worse, and at least he had found respite from pursuit. It was even possible that Tostig would aid him in his struggle for justice.

As the huscarls surged out of the gate into Eoferwic, he suppressed his pride and joined the slaves. For most of the morning, he hacked logs from the trees dragged in from the woods to the south. A constant supply of fuel was needed to keep the winter fires burning, and fast though he worked, the woodpile never seemed to grow any larger. The other woodmen eyed him with sullen suspicion, but he kept his head down, allowing the rhythm of his labor to still his troubled thoughts. Only when the sun was at its highest and his arm muscles burned did he wipe the sweat from his brow and go in search of food.

Gnawing on a hunk of bread, he rested in the lee of the hall, watching the bear prowl its enclosure. The sweet smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, barely masking the choking odors drifting in from the filthy streets. As he looked idly round, a figure moving stealthily through the deep snow caught his eye. Though her cloak was pulled tight, he saw that it was Acha. Something about her cold expression and determined step drew his attention, and his puzzlement turned to unease when he noticed that she was approaching the house where the injured Thangbrand lay.

With a rush of realization, he threw the bread aside and raced between the huts. He caught up with Acha at the door to Thangbrand's dwelling and grabbed her wrist as she half turned at the sound of his shoes in the snow. A knife flew from her hand into a drift. Her eyes blazed. With her free hand, she lashed out, raking her nails across his cheek. “Leave me be,” she snarled.

Hereward dragged her out of sight around the side of the hut and pressed her against the wall until she calmed down. “You planned to kill Thangbrand? Has he not suffered enough?”

“No. He laid hands upon me … he shamed me … he deserves death.”

“Have you lost your wits? You would not escape punishment. At the least, you would suffer the agonies of an ordeal. At worst, death.”

“He shamed me!”

Hereward was struck by the murderous fury in Acha's eyes. “I cannot allow you to risk your own life—”

“Allow me?” she snapped. “You have no say in what I do. I am no little rabbit, weak and frightened and needing a man to fight my battles. In my homeland, men bowed before me—”

She caught herself, and in that moment Hereward understood that she had been a woman of some standing before Tostig had taken her prisoner. She looked away, her jaw set.

“Heed me. I know full well the curse of uncontrollable passions. We need no enemies—we destroy ourselves,” he said. “This is a mistake. I will not let you sacrifice yourself to gain revenge.”

“I do not need your protection.”

“You think I can help myself? I could not turn away and see you or any woman destroyed.”

“Then you are a fool.” She threw off his grip and pushed by him. He felt relieved to see her ignore the knife as she walked back toward the hall. Following in her wake, he recognized that he had done some good that day, a small recompense for the trail of misery he had left behind him over the years. Perhaps Acha understood that too, deep beneath her anger, for she glanced back at him once she reached the hall. Her expression looked curious, but before he could wonder what it meant, she disappeared inside.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
ERROR HAUNTED EVERY PART OF
E
OFERWIC
. A
S THE COLD
days passed in the slow march toward the Christmas feast, Hereward had grown to realize that this place was no London or Mercia, where the rule of law held sway. Northumbria truly was wild and untamed. Though the age of the Vikings had passed, their spirit of fire and rock had been embedded in the land, he found, and the people here were of an independent nature. They felt aggrieved that Tostig, a man of the south, had been imposed upon them, and they caused trouble on a daily basis. Even the earl's decision to hire Northmen for his huscarls had done little to placate the people. Those loyal to Tostig were beaten, their houses burned. Open talk of rebellion rustled in the marketplace and along the wharves and in the tavern.

Hereward cared little. He had his own plans for revenge, and they consumed him. But he knew he had to bide his time until he learned whether the earl's messenger had successfully convinced the King, or Harold Godwinson, of Edwin of Mercia's crimes. At least there had been no sign of the enemies who had pursued him so relentlessly across moor and hill. Perhaps they had fallen to the wolves or the cold, he hoped.

In the quiet moments during his hard labors alongside the slaves, he found himself watching for Acha. They had exchanged looks across the smoky hall, but her dark features always kept her feelings locked away. Three times he had tried to speak to her, but she had spurned him as if he was not there, and he had no way of knowing if this was some game she was playing or if she truly did hold him in contempt. Beside the waters of their Mercian home, his brother Redwald had once warned that some woman would be the death of him, and when he looked into Acha's cold gaze he wondered if that might be true.

A week after the brawl with Thangbrand, a gray pall blew across the south end of Eoferwic, and he was at last summoned from his menial tasks to join the earl's men. Another fire had been lit, by the rebels, it was feared, and Kraki ordered Hereward to fetch his weapon. The familiar feel of his sword in his hand soothed him. As Kraki waved the huscarls out of the enclosure and over the frozen ruts into the wall of smoke rolling across the tightly packed houses, Hereward knew he should keep one eye on his companions. They loped like a pack of wolves on each side, clutching axes that could easily be turned on him in the confusion.

Wind-whipped flakes of charred wood and smoldering straw mingled with the falling snow. Out of the billowing cloud, frantic men, women, and children jostled along the narrow street. The fire's roar drowned out their frightened cries. “Keep your wits about you,” Kraki called. “These bastards are like ghosts. You'll have a face full of blood from a split head before you even know anyone's there.”

Thrusting fleeing men and women aside, he strode up to Hereward, his eyes lost to the shadows beneath his helmet. “The rabble-rouser is in there,” he growled, jabbing his axe toward the smoke. Through the folding gray, red and gold glowed dimly. “Find him before he escapes again.”

“What about the fire?”

“You weren't scared of the flames when you burned Thangbrand,” the Northman sneered, his ragged scar flexing above his beard. “Ravenswart is rounding up enough of these frightened mice to carry water so we can stop the fire spreading. Get in there, and don't come back until you have that bastard.”

His mail clanking, Kraki ran back toward the milling huscarls. He barked orders at his men to save cattle and corn while Ravenswart attempted to bring the conflagration under control, and then directed twenty of the troops to surround the burning area so their prey could not escape when Hereward flushed him out.

His throat stinging, Hereward plunged into the smoke. The sound of the fire and his footsteps became muffled. When he broke through to the other side, he saw that the jumble of workshops, stores, and houses was devoid of life. Hammers, augers, axes, spades, and rakes lay where their owners had discarded them when the alarm had been raised. A fallen butter churn spilled its sticky contents onto the dirt. The roar of the fire was louder here, and he could see the flames leaping up above the thatched roofs.

Eyes stinging, Hereward watched the dark entrances to the shacks. He had learned that the “rabble-rouser” was Wulfhere, the one-eyed, one-handed man he had seen on his arrival in Eoferwic, a woodworker who had grown more outspoken about Tostig's rule since the summer had waned. Now the man was openly calling for the earl's overthrow. Peering toward the blaze, Hereward saw that this time the troublemakers had targeted the home of one of the earl's wealthy merchant supporters. The fire had been lit with care, taking into account the direction of the wind, so it would not spread into the heart of Eoferwic.

The snow was falling faster now. Hereward found his vision reduced to the width of the icy road. Choking and coughing, he searched hut after hut, moving steadily closer to the burning house. When the rafters collapsed, a loud crash echoed over the roofs and golden sparks swirled up to greet the white flakes. The warrior could hear the shouts of Kraki's men circling the burning street. If Wulfhere was still within the smoke-filled area, there would be nowhere for him to run.

Sensing movement on the edge of his vision, he darted into a weaver's shop where a blackened cauldron bubbled over hot embers, ready to make the colors fast. The air was heavy with the sweet fragrance of woad leaves, dried weld and madder roots. Wool and flax were piled in one corner, and a warp-weighted loom leaned against the wall, a sheet of linen half-complete where it had been abandoned by the weaver. Turning slowly, Hereward looked around the gloomy, cluttered workshop.

Rapid movement distracted him. Through the open door, he saw a stream of brown rats flood away from the fire, ringed tails lashing the air. The moment the Mercian turned, a crash sounded behind him. He was thrust roughly to one side as someone barged by. Stumbling to his knee, he glimpsed a dark figure scrambling through the door into the smoke.

Hereward threw himself in pursuit. Leather shoes clattered on the hard ground ahead. He glimpsed the figure in front and to the left, gone in an instant. Then to the right. The man was weaving across the road, trying to lose his pursuer or searching for a bolt-hole hidden by the smoke. His breath clouding, Hereward leaped log piles and heaps of rotting food, ducking down narrow walkways between houses. The ragged breathing of his prey drifted back to him.

When he burst onto a street filled with squealing pigs, a crescent of fire confronted him. The heat from the blazing ruins of the merchant's hall seared his skin. But he saw that the conflagration had not been contained as Kraki had promised. Somehow the flames had jumped across a narrow way, and now two other houses burned close to a densely packed area of huts and workshops. On the other side of the hall, the blaze was also starting to spread.